Just like most things in life, your writing success is a matter of chance.
The amount of people that enjoy your work and actively follow your writing is due to ALOT of factors you can’t control.
That’s a scary fact to know but understanding this is the first step in playing the probability game for the most out of your writing.
The Chances of You Being Here
How are you not dead?
Seriously.
You were born into this world as a small defenseless creature completely dependent on those around you.
You were this way for several years, you survived all the dangerous things in your environment and are now reading this post in a relatively safe place.
That’s awesome!
But some people aren’t as lucky.
The way you’ve survived is a mixture of chance and decision-making.
By luck, you weren’t born into a world without technology.
By chance, no murderous leader is punishing you for your race.
And it is by the grace of god that you are here right now.
Probability and Chance in Your Writing
Chance and probability are things that inherently are extremely difficult for people to understand.
Daniel Kahgneman’s awesome book Thinking Fast and Slow gives you more information about our statistical biases.
We weren’t evolved to understand compound interest or exponential growth.
Nothing in nature seems to work the same way so it’s hard to conceptualise.
This means that the reason you are in your situation, in your mind, is due to YOUR ACTION when in actuality it’s not that simple.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of immediately blaming yourself completely for how your writing is going.
I am not saying however that you shouldn’t work on yourself, it’s just valuable to understand the forces that are larger than you affecting your life.
Breaking It Down
What is success as a writer?
For me it’s lots of people reading your work, buying it, and sharing it with others.
Easy enough.
The first thing you would work on is writing good work, the logical route.
Another way to approach it is the probability game.
Writing and The Probability Game
This mindset is asking yourself, statistically, how do you increase the probability of an outcome?
To do this you use your goal, broken down into its parts.
For my definition of success (Lots of people buying, reading, and sharing your work.) we can break it down further.
- People need to buy your book
- People need to read your book
- People need to share your book
- Lots of people need to do these things
How do you increase your chances of people buying your book?
You make your work visible online and cheap to purchase
How do you get people to read your book?
Set prizes or goals for your readers to achieve.
How do people get to share your work?
They need to enjoy your writing. Work on making your writing enjoyable to read.
How do you get more people to do these things?
Put out more content.
Summary
In the end, it all comes down to your work output.
The more work you put out the more people statistically will like your writing.
When more people like your writing, you will sell more books.
The more books you sell, the more people read your book.
Having more people read your book the more it gets shared.
Creating a feedback loop designed through statistics rather than remaining blind to chance will ensure your success.
Statistically speaking of course.
May luck be on your side and your work gets the recognition it deserves.
Happy writing 🙂
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